Salvador Ruiz I Málaga, (EFE) Just as after failing to be the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2016 came a rain of museums, now it could be -calmly- a sustainable city.
This is the opinion of an expert in cities and a good connoisseur of this one in particular, the urban planner and architect Salvador Moreno (Málaga, 1947), who, compared to those who defend that this Expo would have been very good, maintains -based on that “experience of 2016 ”- that “this type of event disturbs rather than enriches”.
In an interview with EFE, he proposes to relativize “what may be disappointing” that defeat and believes “it is reasonable to continue with the planned program, but improving it.”
“Now we no longer have the urgency, we are not with our tongues out to do the things that had to be done and the commitments of Expo 2027; now we are calmer, we can do things with more serenity”, he assured.
Weak point: Sustainability
Moreno considers that the candidacy “has been strong, the proof is that it has reached second place”, but warns of its “weak point” already in the motto itself -“The urban age: towards the sustainable city”-, because his understanding “Málaga is not sustainable”.
He wonders how a city is going to be sustainable with the current poverty rate and adds that it presents bad employment data and that “some people are proud that housing prices and rents are through the roof, as if it were a bell of glory”.
He affirms that now Malaga has a lot to do “from a winning position” because “this Malaga of today has nothing to do with that of 10 years ago, it is infinitely better” and that “that is what counts, to continue in line which is being worked on, correcting a number of errors that were appearing”.
“It cannot be a sustainable city that maintains Los Asperones (a substandard housing settlement), the one that has skyrocketing rents, the one that throws the population out of the center,” he stated, while complaining about the ineffectiveness of the public administrations and the delay in leaving projects.
He points out that the fundamental thing is not the candidacy of Expo 2027, “but the path that has been followed to be able to get there in advantageous conditions”, for which he proposes “insisting there”.
“Exhibitions out of place”
Due to the scant echo in the national media about the fact that Malaga is not the venue for the Expo -which Belgrade (Serbia) won by 11 votes- he concludes that “it was something without the slightest relevance behind the scenes”.
It indicates that these types of exhibitions “are out of place” compared to those of previous times, which served to publicize innovations -such as the one in Paris, “which showed the Eiffel Tower”-, while the one in Ibero-American Seville was already for meet between nations. Today they are “a showcase of the city”.
“Málaga had taken giant steps in breaking the crust of provincial invisibility that all provinces have; It had done it with the cultural capital and with the museums, with urban tourism and with the incorporation of the Port, with very meritorious things that the city has already done capon, without the need to resort to the Olympic Games or an Expo”, he highlighted.
“Extraordinary events like these exhibitions have not given good results from the urban point of view,” he says, and has alluded to the one in Zaragoza in 2008.
He even describes the one in Seville in 1992 as a “disaster. We invested millions of pesetas to make a huge neighborhood in La Cartuja, which when the Expo ended they did not know what to do with it; they had to make a technological park quickly and running, which was also the responsibility of the one in Malaga”, all “to get out of the commitment that the Expo had put the city into”.
Investment funds see a “real estate paradise”
As for whether the city is in fashion, he believes that “investment funds have seen a true real estate investment paradise and are literally looting Málaga, bringing in their professional teams, with which all the architects are becoming unemployed.
“It’s fashionable because the real estate sector is putting it on,” he says.
He maintains that the fact that “all” the investment funds are in Malaga “is not to be proud of”, but “a little bit to worry because the harmful and negative consequences of this avalanche of investment by the funds are beginning to be seen : no one can have access to a house”.
He adds that “the center has been emptied” and that “even someone rich cannot buy a house because it does not arrive”.
This veteran architect, who drafted the General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) 40 years ago when “Malaga was a quagmire” and who participated in the city’s Strategic Plan, sent a message to the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, giving him encouragement after the defeat of the Expo.
“After the fiasco of 2016, when the cultural capital, a city of museums emerged; now I hope that after the relative fiasco of Expo 2027 a sustainable city will come out, ”he explains that he told the councilor, of which he highlights his“ more than brilliant ”career at the head of the City Council and qualifies as a“ political winner ”.
Moreno adds that Malaga “has developed cultural tourism practically out of nothing” and that now, with calm, pending issues such as the Guadalmedina river, the auditorium, the Baños del Carmen or the Benítez Camp can be addressed. EFE